Welcome to another edition of Ask Wheels! A
lot of great letters this week, but I'd just
like to say that Growlanser: Wayfarer of
Time is really great, and I can't
recommend it enough to anyone with a PSP.
It's very old-school in style, but I've been
enjoying it quite a lot. Don't let this gem
pass you by!

Anyway, on to the letters!

The Letters

XIII

Hey Wheels,

It's been a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time (5+
years) since I've read the
Q&A, and I must say, you write well, you
have a great sense of
logic, you seem very perceptive and
experienced, and I admire the
respect you provide the readers you disagree
with. With that said, I
respectfully disagree that FFXIII
was even a 'good game'.

I readily admit, there's a lot to love about
FFXIII. The story
is great, the characters are amazing, the
visuals are phenomenally
impressive, the musical score is brilliant,
I'll even swallow the
battle system being great. But a battle
system does not a great game
make - and everything else could just as
easily describe a movie. The
actual game itself, stripped of story,
visuals, characters, and music
barely makes ok. I felt like I was playing a
3D sidescroller for so
many hours of that game, and that epic '25
hour' chapter 11 mark I
trudged so long for? I can get a similar
level of fun - game wise - in
practically any MMO. Do I regret playing
through it? No way! Would I
recommend it to a fellow gamer - absolutely!
But honestly... in order
to enjoy all the parts I really loved about
FFXIII - I really
did feel like I had to *endure* the game
itself.

Wheels

Well
sure, but I
think that's a matter of bad
pacing and not necessarily a
case of the
game being bad. Besides, the
"gamey" part, the battle system,
takes up
a large portion of the gameplay
and after a slow start really
gets
good. So does it have a really
slow start, especially if it is
your
second playthrough? Yes it does.
Does that mean it's bad? I don't
think
so. There's nothing wrong with a
very linear RPG, FFXIII
just takes it a bit too far
at times.

I don't consider any FF made post X
to be FF's.
There are some Excellent games, truly
fantastic games that I love - but
there's a magic, an emotion, a sense I have
had playing every single Final
Fantasy since the original that faded
in FFX-2 and seems to
have been lost ever since. Even Tactics
- a completely
different type of game in many ways, managed
to capture that spirit I'm
talking about. FF:TSWOTOH
did not have that FF
spirit (I sometimes think it's ironic that
they spend that whole movie
searching for spirits, and that the 'final'
spirit dies.). I can't
really explain it, but I do hope you have an
idea of what I mean.

Wheels

I
find this
sentiment odd, since FFXII
captured a lot of the style of Tactics.
With modern technology the
series has had to evolve, and
that's what
it's done. I know the feeling
you're talking about, but at the
same
time when I really dug into
these games I was able to find
it. FFXII is
essentially Final
Fantasy with a
BioWare-style
battle system, and once I was
able to use time magic I felt
right at
home. With Final
Fantasy XIII
it was the way classic monster
types were re-imagined in XIII's
style that made me feel at
home. I do completely understand
what you mean. I felt it with FFXI,
just not the other two. Actually
I forgot about Final
Fantasy XIV.
I had the same issue there!

Anyway, on to the real reasons I'm
writing.
First, is regarding FF antagonists
and villains, namely, the
section in your last Q&A regarding FFVII,
Shinra, and
Sephiroth. I wanted to flesh out the points
that were made. Shinra is
absolutely the primary antagonist, however I
would contest that while
Sephiroth is the main villain, he is a minor
antagonist (or even as the
'contagonist') as his goals are practically
never to flat out stop the
protagonists, but rather to reason with
them, hinder their efforts, and
manipulate them ('puppet').

Wheels

That
is
a good point, and in several
cases, like the infiltration of
Shinra
headquarters in disc one, he
even manages to help them a bit.
Also he
has one of the best theme songs
in the series.

However, Sephiroth is an extension of the
story, Sephiroth himself is
the ultimate consequence of the terrible
experiments performed by the
Shinra Corporation. In fact, almost every
terrible thing that the
protagonists deal with in FFVII is
descended from Shinra, and
Sephiroth is but one of those things.
Everything from Cloud's identity
and sanity issues, to Red XIII, Vincent, and
Lucrecia being test
subjects for Hojo's experiments, to the
nature of Sephiroth's existence
and his link to Jenova that drives him into
his own identity crisis,
and eventual slip into madness and his plot
involving Meteor.

My point is really this: Final
Fantasy VII is ultimately about the
fact that you can't just
stop a government or company's perverse
experiments or from killing the
earth by draining it's precious resources.
On the contrary - that's the
easy part. The hard part is cleaning up the
mess, enduring and
overcoming the consequences, righting the
wrongs, stopping the chain of
events that have been set in motion that
will destroy the world, and
ultimately healing.

Wheels

Wow,
I've never
really seen FFVII's
plot
described like that. This gives
the game a whole new light for
me.
Focusing too much on Sephiroth
can make the plot look crazy.
When you
look at it from the angle of
Shinra being the only villain
throughout,
then the plot makes perfect
sense. Shinra is the evil you
have to
fight, and it just so happens
unlike some RPGs, beating the
evil group
doesn't just make things all
hunky dorey again. Reminds me a
bit of SuikodenII
in that way.

On another, brief note, Sephiroth was not
evil. Sephiroth was both
created by and the victim of terrible
experiments that made him into
the strongest and most powerful single being
known at the time. He was
a good man, an honorable man, but his
realizations led him into hatred
and madness... And that is why he had to be
destroyed. Sephiroth was
not evil. He was lost, broken, shredded, and
alone, and, as it happens,
dead. Cloud had friends to guide him through
his insanity. Sephiroth
had no one.

Wheels

See,
now I
really want to see a remake of FFVII
so they can do a better job of
developing this character.
Imagine that
flashback scene where we first
see Sephiroth lose it in
glorious HD.
Then they can fix up the long
list of battle system issues I
have as
well!

I had some other points, but this email is
getting long. And I know how FFVII
isn't exactly your favorite either. Not
to mention, you probably have a dozen FFVII
emails, so I'll
leave it at that.

All the best to you,

-Jeremy

Wheels

Well,
it isn't
exactly my favorite Final
Fantasy game,
but it's my favorite series so
I'm always up for talking about
any of
the entries (except for the
MMOs). Feel free to send me in
more
thoughts on the game if you'd
like! Your thoughts were very
interesting.

The RPG Olympics

Dear Wheels,

A sporting event taken place nearby has
inspired me to ask which
characters you would select for the RPGland
Olympic Team in order to
get the gold. Obviously I'm not expecting
selections for all the events
but let's shoot for around ten (including
one team event just to make
it fun :P).

Bear in mind that strict drug-testing will
be conducted so should make
sure their potions don't contain any
suspicious ingredients ;)

-Severin

Wheels

Alright,
let's get this ball running
then!

Archery - Green Arrow -Yes this
is kind of cheating, but he was
in that Justice League
Heroes game, so he
technically is from an RPG!

Running of all sorts - Sonic -
Thank you Sonic Chronicles.
Yeah I'm pretty sure Sonic could
win every even from the 100m
dash to the marathon with ease.

Long Jump - Luigi - Come on now,
it's Luigi! The guy can jump,
often better than his brother.

Fencing - Cyan from Final
Fantasy VI - His swords
skills are legendary and I think
he'd have no problem doing well
in this event.

Judo - Sabin from Final
Fantasy VI - He can suplex
a train, so I doubt he'd have
any issues getting some throws
off on people.

Javelin - Knights from the Fire
Emblem series - I
couldn't really pick a specific
one, but these mounted knights
use Javelins as a long range
weapon so I'm sure they can take
on people who trow it just for
sport.

Tennis - Mario - I mean, there
are some great tennis players in
the Olympics, but none of them
can use crazy power-ups like
Mario.

Water Polo - The best blitzball
team from Final Fantasy X
- These guys play almost the
same sport underwater, I think
they can handle a silly above
water sport just fine.

Basketball - The Final
Fantasy team from Mario
Hoops 3 on 3 - Yes since
they are originally from RPGs I
think these guys count. Yes, if
you're wondering, I am
suggesting this team of three
would destroy teams of five in
the Olympics.

There you are!

Tales of Failing

Unfortunately many of the side games of DQ
dont have
translations

DQ 1-6 on snes have translations. But
the side
games go neglected

Wheels

Dang,
that's a shame. Some of the side
games do get translated, and I
was hoping that roguelike (the
PS2/GBA Torneko game)
would be one of them. Oh well, I
guess I'd rather see someone
translate the first Rocket
Slime game anyway. Now if
they would just localize the
third game...

Top 10 Weakest Enemies We've all been killed
by and the story behind
it....

Wheels

Oh
excellent, this should be fun!

10) Generic RPG Rat

Story: Rats in FF 12, in the VERY
FREAKING BEGINNING, when your
in the sewers with van and you have to kill
3 of them. Well, I didnt
realize steals were limited to 1 per rat in
this game, so I kept
stealing, and before I knew it, I had been
killed by the rats in the
very freaking beginning.

Now this sucked for many reasons. The last
save point was before
Spoiler alert, you switched from his
brother, so you had to go through
the entire cut scene all over again

Wheels

Whoops!
That had to suck, having to go
replay the entire intro section.
I can't recall an instance of
losing to this very typical
intro enemy, but it's weird how
often these are used. My
favorite usage of it would have
to be in The Bard's Tale,
where you go in expecting to
fight tiny rats and get chased
off by a giant fire breathing
one.

9) Pidgey

Story: Pidgey looks way more terrifying in
that picture than he does in
the games. Pidgey, along with Rattata are
suppose to be the enemies you
beat up on. Picture it, 1996, I had just
purchased Pokemon Red. I had
been grinding in the grass for hours. Not
paying attention to how much
health I had. I just kept pouding Tackle (
You should be able to guess
which mon I had. And without knowing it,
this, this beast level 5
pidgey had killed me, and I warped to the
pokemon center, where I told
nurse joy my shame. I had been killed by a
pidgey.

Wheels

Embarrassing,
but with little experience with
the game having just come out, I
could see it happening. I doubt
you're the only one this has
happened to. Better than losing
to a Jigglypuff or something
right?

8) Chu Chu

Story: A slime ball. A freakin slime ball. I
died in majoras mask
from one of these guys. I was cruising
around termina overworld for
like 5 hours as goron link, it was so much
damn fun........I was on a 3
heart challenge. And literally as soon as
the magic meter went out, so
I wasnt invincible anymore, I ran right
smack into a chu and died. Now
you might be saying, there is so much health
in the grass, how at 3
hearts could you have died? Well, I was
doing it so much THERE WAS NO
MORE GRASS LEFT.............And 2 hearts
were accidentally removed when
I went rolling in some water in a little
puddle area. It was terrible

Wheels

It
was terrible, but hey, it can
happen. I've died from terrible
enemies a bunch of times in Zelda
games from just not paying
attention when I had about half
a heart left. It can happen,
though your story is crazy!

7) Toadman

Story: The legendary easiest robot master.
First appearence? Megaman
4. All he does IS FREAKIN JUMP AROUND
LIKE A TOAD. And somehow
maybe I wasnt paying attention but I couldnt
get the pattern right, and
I kept landing under him. And I died. Stupid
nes difficulty ( Whistles)

Wheels

Hey,
Toadman is easy but if you don't
pay attention or get lazy he can
easily beat you, and it's
happened to me. This one isn't
that surprising.

6) WaddleDee

Story: Look at that <BACON>
wipe. So smug,
Are those his arms or ears? He has no mouth.
Yet somehow he got me to
jump into a pit. He was walking towards the
pit from the other side, I
was jumping over it, Somehow I hit the
corner of him. Took fallback
damage and went right into the pit. Sort of
sucked.

Wheels

Ha!
Yeah I've had awful deaths like
that in platformers. Probably
from this very guy even!

5) Crab

Story - You ever try fighting these suckers
in the very beginning on
the PC, if the difficulty is turned up to
max and your low on health? I
wouldnt recommend it. I was foolish enough
to dare fight the mightiest
mud crab. I had escaped from the prision,
fight my way to the surface,
only to meet my doom by lunch.

Wheels

Don't
mess with mud crabs man, that's
bad juju.

4) Snake

Story: You know the drill. Fight through a
horde of zombies with nary a
scratch, open a crate and have a snake bite
you draining the last of
your health. On hard mode, this happened to
me. And the sad part was I
hadnt saved, and it sent me too far
back..........

Wheels

Oh
man that must have been awful. A
lest in careful saving. Still, I
think this isn't as bad as dying
in one of the interactive
cut-scenes, which I've done in
both Resident Evil 4 and
Resident Evil 5.

3) Slime

Story: How can something so cute, with no
limbs kill you? Genetics.
Pure Genetics. He most of been tired of
being killed all the time, so
he went through the weapon X program to
become adamantium infused.
Wait? you killed the metal slimes too?
<BACON>, there is actually
a leader slime called king slime. Yeah thats
the one I died too.

Nothing
wrong with losing to slimes,
it's happened to all of us!
Especially if you've just
crossed a bridge in the original
Dragon Quest. The crazy
monsters wait for you to cross a
bridge!

2) Goomba

Story: Yes you did. Admit it. On level 1 of
the original new super
mario bros, he caught you off guard under
the first block grouping
didn't he? DIDN'T HE? Admit it, he owned
your ass. Goombas are
mushrooms with 2 stump legs. Sometimes they
have spikes on there heads.
Sometimes they have wings. Other times they
had bruising, and other
times, they were your party members. NEVER
MATTER. They are vicious
head bonking fiends.

Wheels

It's
happened to us all man, it's
happened to us all.

1) Medusa Head

Story: A floating head...............Tell me
if you didnt have this
happen to you while playing SOTN on
the psx. Your standing on a
rotating mechanical cog. You can see the
door to the next passage. You
can taste it, You can smell it. Your jumping
like a fiend not to fall
down. You make that fatefull
leap...............AND BAM, golden medusa
head to the face, your stone now, you fall
all the way down to the
beginning of the platforming section, your
button mashing like a mad
man to get rid of it. And the sad part is?
By the time you face them
you have 10x the health, and 1 sword swing
will destroy them. But they
get you time and time again.

There you have it........tell me in the
comments, are there any
embarrassing deaths you'd like to get off
your conscience?

Thanks For Reading

-Alan

Wheels

Man,
how are these a bad enemy? I
hate these things. So many dang
times they destroyed me. I hated
these more than any other enemy
in the Castlevania series.
I can't count the number of
times they've caused me to fail
horribly. Always messing with my
precise jumps.

Thanks for this great top ten
list, that was fun!

The Crystal Comes Back

Hey Wheels, capital W. The column
comes back eh?

Wheels

Indeed, I've been trying to keep
this going, and thanks to some
fantastic readers (like you) I've
been able to do so. I think the most
important thing with this column is
consistency, getting it up almost
every week even if it isn't always
the same day every week. That way,
when people write in these lengthy
letters they actually have an
expectation that I'll respond to it
in a timely fashion. I hope to keep
this going for awhile yet!

So. My 80GB Playstation 3 just took a
crap on me. Yeah,
YLOD. So I went out and bought the
160GB "Summer" Bundle that
came with the Sly Trilogy and GT5.
Good bundle,
but obviously I have a lot of beef.

Wheels

I'm sure, but I'm just going to go
ahead and guess that your beef isn't
about the Sly Trilogy. Those
games are fantastic. Need to pick up
that collection myself.

It's pretty lame that Sony took out the
emulation code for playing PS2
games one their console. Why?
Now I have to hunt down
component cables for my old PS2 so the games
will look SOMEWHAT decent
when I want to play them, which is a
lot. So this is kind of
ridiculous don't you think? What makes
it an even more slap in
the face is that still, they play original
Playstation games, but you
know what bugs? They look like
crap. So on to my next MAJOR
topic.

Wheels

Ah the backwards compatibility
issues. This one drives me nuts. If
it's
software based, which supposedly it
was after the early PS3s, how does
remove that software save them
money, or do anything other than
create
angry customers? Did they want to
keep PS2 sales going? Did they want
to capitalize on PS2 HD collections?
I don't really have any answer,
but none of the possibilities make
much sense. PS1 classics on PSN do
perfectly fine, so it's not like
having PS1 backwards compatibility
has
hurt digital PS1 sales. PS1 games
can look pretty bad played on the
PS3, but I don't think there's much
they can do about it. Heck, many of
the games have aged so badly they
don't need any help to look awful.
At
least most games work fine, that's
all that matters.

What is up with Square? Why haven't
they done any major HD
remakes? Seriously. I wanna see
every Final Fantasy game
re-done in HD. Talk about cash
cow. I don't want to have to
go buy a Vita for these HD remakes either,
especially when my PS3 is
perfectly capable of making this
possible. Cheers to Konami and
Capcom for making all of their classics
HD. Square needs to get
on the ball and start releasing HD
masterpieces like the Kingdom
Hearts series and Final Fantasy,
Dragon Quest,
available. What's up with them?
Kinda really bugs me.

Wheels

I really wish I had an answer for
this one. This is Square Enix, who
know how to port their properties
all over the place and hit all our
nostalgia buttons. So why no PS2 HD
collections? I know they're doing
so with Final Fantasy X,
but
it seems to be taking forever, and
is just one game instead of a
collection. Seems like a low-risk
very high reward type of prospect,
so I don't get it. Could it be
technical issues of some kind? I
mean
with Kingdom Hearts III
still
a long ways off, a nice Kingdom
HeartsI&II
HD
collection for PS3 would be nice.

When Wild Arms came out on
Playstation, that game kicked butt,
and it still does. What a good
game. Great music, straight
forward battles. and a good story.
Unfortunately 2 lacked
a lot of things and turned me off to any
other offerings the series
had. But still, I wanted to try 3,
4, and 5.
What's up with companies these days.
Does it really take a lot of
effort to convert games to higher
resolution? Seems to me like
its just easy money. Kinda sad gamers
get shafted like
this. What's up with new releases into
the Shin Megami
series too, why haven't we seen any next gen
titles from series like Wild
Arms, Suikoden, and Megami?
Has Sony and
these developers really lost their
touch? I feel lost as a
gamer. I just wanna play my old games
then.

Wheels

Well there's actually different
reasons for each of them as far as I
can tell. Wild Arms'
developer has been working on those
Chaos
Rings games for iOS which
have done quite well. Wild
Arms V didn't exactly light
up
the sales charts, so they seem quite
content with Chaos
Rings. The Suikoden
series had a dramatic
drop in sales after Suikoden
IV,
so Konami tried to reboot the series
with a less expensive entry on the
DS. An HD entry seems like a tough
call. As for Shin
Megami Tensei? Atlus goes
where the Japanese market goes. They
had a lot of titles on the PS2,
because that's what their primary
audience was playing on. After the
PS2, the audience went to DS and PSP
and that is where you'll find
fresh amazing entries in the Shin
Megami Tensei series like Devil
Survivor and Strange
Journey.
I could see them doing another Persona
game on the PS3 and 360, but I would
expect other games in the series
to stay portable for the forseeable
future. The Japanese market went
portable crazy, and the RPGs
followed.

And on a last Suikoden note.
Why, haven't they released
Suikoden 2 on the PSN yet? That's lame
too. How long has
the first one been out on the PSN, for a
long time....

I love the consistency, thanks Wheels.

Ian

Wheels

I wish I had an answer. The first Suikoden
showed up as one of the very first
PS1 classics and had to have gotten
some visibility because of that
fact. Yet years later and still no Suikoden
II on PSN? There must be
some kind of technical issues or
some other problem. It just makes no
sense.

Anyway, thanks for the praise and
the great questions, I look forward
to hearing from you again!

IN
CLOSING

That's it for this week folks!
Are you American gamers ready for Last
Story next week? Send me
in your thoughts on the game!